What? More Of This Rubbish? Letters To The Editor Yet Again

may I, as an occasional reader, speak up for the humble cod? Wherever I go, I find that nary a person has a kind word for the cod. I am frequently made nauseous by the effusions of some of our more simple-minded citizens, upon the subject of their pet animals, viz. lap dogs, cats, various songsters, and suchlike.

But how many endearments is the cod vouchsafed? Not one. Well? Have you ever heard anybody speak kindly to a cod? That would indeed be the day, to paraphrase Buddy Holly (how many songs did Buddy Holly, or Tom Jones, or Robbie Williams, address to the cod? None, I think you will find); not that Buddy Holly, even were he to still be alive, would be likely to include a cod in the list of subjects about which to write sentimental or crudely-sensuous drivel of the sort that sells records, or MP3s, or whatever they are flogging to the general class of idiots these days.

Surely noone can deny the veracity of my argument. And yet - and this is the ultimate irony - true as this all unfortunately is, if I were - as I have often considered - to try to redress the balance, I would be ostracised.

I would, you know. If I were to acquire a cod - or perhaps a breeding pair of cods - and keep them in a suitably-large tank of salt water, people would think I was a nutter. "That nutter who keeps a cod in a tank in his garage, the loony", they would say in the pub.

But there would be a cod - or perhaps a breeding pair of cods - who would know the kind of love never hitherto experienced by their brethren.

And that is something.

Yours sincerely,

Julian Stinkhorne,Lesmahagow

PS And as for Robbie Williams, well, I hear that he will soon be moving to the Eden Project to live because it's the only place big enough to fit his fat ego into. I am only glad I have decided to devote my life to the shoals of Atlantic cod, where the swim bladder is King and the ego is absent.

Dear Sir,

I made the mistake today of watching Wimbledon on the television. Hitherto I have only watched it on radio. What a surprise I got.

I had expected it to be like the World Cup or the 2020 cricket (why they didn't call it the 2011 cricket I'll never know, but the kettle was boiling and Mabel came in with a packet of snowballs so I didn't press the matter). What a fool I have been. All these lanky foreigners hitting a ball at each other. It was all the same. They don't even wear different jerseys, so how do you tell them apart? I couldn't make out how they were scoring it either. You seem to get 15 points if you hit one of the squares, and this mounts up to 30 but then how do you get to 40 when you'd think it should be 45, and then they stop adding numbers and start talking about advantages and disadvantages, and calling for juice, and they keep breaking the tennis bats or breaking each others' bats or something, and then they eat a banana and throw towels at the young people who keep running about in the background. And why is there a man or a woman sat in a high chair with a clip board? Then they keep saying "game to Miss Szszygotzzy" or somebody, but even when she's got the game they still carry on playing.

Mabel said never to mind, they've got nice muscular legs and big biceps and hairy chests anyway, but it's all right for her, she's a lesbian.

Yours sincerely,

Valerie Singleton,Broadmoor

Dear Sir,

can I use your letters page to publicise the hopeful production of a unique production based on Madama Butterfly by Giacomo Puccini and the works of Andrew Lloyd-Webber?

Many of your readers will be familiar with the concept of a flea-circus. Indeed, I have had a background in being interested in these diminutive spectacles.

Yes, we have the world's first all-insect production of Puccini's heart-rending opera. The part of Cio Cio San will be played by a trained wasp. Suzuki, the maid, we have cast to a bee. Yamaha, her butler, we will see played by a daddy long-legs. Mazda, the painter of Cio Cio San's toenails, is played by a lovely caddis fly, the cad Pinkerton, who breaks the heart of Cio Cio San, will be performed by surely the world's greatest tenor bluebottle, and, in a world premiere feature, we hope to train a troupe of hand-picked hornets to do the famous humming chorus.

There is still much work to do. Thus far, this is still just an idea in my head, but I am determined to see it through. Though the world call me mad, yet my vision drives me forward.

Great things are done when men and insects meet.

Yours sincerely,

David Stanley Livingstone,Sarawak

PS You didn't believe any of this crap did you? What do you think I am, a complete lunatic?